Herb fascicled, with many roots at the base of the stem. The stem is 60-50 cm, rusty-green, hispid, quadrangular, pith holed, leaves simple, opposite, subsessile, lanceolate, sparsely hispid with long white hairs, whorls of straight stout spines present at nodes.

flowers sessile, mostly in axillary whorls-at times in terminal heads, bracteate and bracteolate, tubular, pale blue-purple, nearly glabrous capsules.4 to 8 seeded. Seems like the eye of a cuckoo. It is diuretic and cooling. It is used in dropsy, rheumatism, jaundice, and diseases of the urinogenital system. The seeds are given in gonorrhea, spermatorrhoea, and debility. The purplish variety used for diabetes because of assumed insulin-like principle it contains. Juice used as an emetic.